How 'bout dem Knicks, huh? They're 0-5 and could return from their West Coast swing at 0-9. Which means the New York boys would have to go 41-32 in their final 73 games just to finish the season with a .500 record.

Yes, it's kind of early for that kind of projection and/or conjecture, but these are the Knicks. The Knicks, who went 33-49 last season. The Knicks, who've qualified for the playoffs just once in the last four seasons. The Knicks, who got booed on Opening Night in their own building.

It's a funny thing. Larry Brown was imported during the summer, at a cost of $10 million per year, to do in New York what he'd done in Detroit -- win, and win big, and win soon. But this may be a bad marriage, words with which Brown is familiar.

He doesn't really function well with losers . . . not that he's had a lot of experience in that regard. And losers often chafe under his direction . . . even if they should have no quarrel with the man and his resume. So 0-5 (and sneaking toward 0-9) may be more of a reflection on this union of "old-school" Larry Brown with these "new-school" Knicks and less of a mirage.

Which means the organization's motto could be: Uh oh.

Now, it can be argued -- and I've engaged in the debate, myself -- that Larry Brown, who is 65 and winding down, is the best basketball coach . . . ever.

He may be a nomad, sure. He has, after all, served as the head man of the alphabetically-listed Carolina Cougars, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, Kansas Jayhawks, Los Angeles Clippers, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, San Antonio Spurs and UCLA Bruins. But he teaches and he wins. And he's done so everywhere.

But at some point, tanks run dry . . . messages are unheard . . . mixes go bad. And so, we watch. And we listen, too. To the rumbling in the distance.

Or, more specifically, to the potential splatting out west as the Knicks must yet play at Sacramento, at Utah, at Los Angeles (Lakers) and at Denver before returning home to the Garden.

Holes are holes. But 0-9, in New York with these Knicks and that coach, could be a canyon. "Uh oh," then, would come with an echo.